


Breaking The Fourth Wall

by Supersinger9000



Category: The Amazing World of Gumball
Genre: AU, Gen, Meta, The Signal, The Void
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2018-10-24 12:16:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10741527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supersinger9000/pseuds/Supersinger9000
Summary: After the events of "The Signal" Gumball and Darwin agree to try to forget about what happened and move on with their lives, but when Darwin actually loses all memories of that day Gumball decides he's going to find out how. Originally uploaded on fanfiction.net.





	1. The Realization

Gumball and Darwin Watterson ran up the stairs into their bedroom. They looked at each other with identical expressions of shock and horror. 

“Darwin? Please tell me this isn’t happening. That this is all a bad dream. We can’t really be on…..” Gumball trailed off, unable to continue his sentence. 

“I want to, I really want to.” Darwin said. “But I don’t think I can.” 

“I just can’t wrap my head around this. This just can’t be possible.” Gumball said. “You do realize what this means don’t you? Our house, our school, our friends, our family, none of it is…..”

“Don’t!” Darwin said, cutting him off. He knew full well what this all meant, he just didn’t want Gumball to say it. It would make it feel more real somehow. 

“Ok, I won’t say it, but that doesn't mean it isn’t true. Our entire lives were nothing but a lie, a cheap corporate trick controlled by a bunch of writers manipulating us to get ratings. Some unseen puppet master controlling everything I say or do or think.”

“Gumball, stop. You’re making my head spin.” 

“Sorry, it’s just a lot to think about.”

“I know what you mean, I have my own questions. Like, how far does this go? Does this mean all of Elmore is fictional? The whole world? The whole universe? Is this some kind of alternate dimension situation?” 

“I don’t know. This whole thing is just insane.” Gumball said. 

“You know what the really weird thing is? It actually explains a lot. Like the time we were running late to school and a clock just showed up out of nowhere, and we were able to use it to time travel.”

“Yeah.” Gumball said, realization dawning on him. “We never did figure out where that clock came from, and what about the time we lost all our money and everything around us kind of degraded. No money means no budget for the show, right?”

“And it’s probably the reason why all of our problems seem to just fix themselves.” Darwin chimed in. 

“And why we haven’t aged in four years.”

“And why we always wear the same clothes”

“And why people sometimes suddenly sound different, or look different.”

“Including us! Remember? We used to look completely different from how we do now!”

"I can't believe it." Gumball said in shock "It was all there, the signs were all there, we were just to stupid to notice."

"Well, so was everyone." Darwin pointed out. “And it is pretty unbelievable, why would we think of something like that? “Oh, Miss Simian looks different, it must be because we’re all just made up characters in a tv show”, kind of a huge leap in logic, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but still, considering all the evidence together, it seems pretty conclusive.” All of a sudden they heard their father cheering from downstairs. 

“Yes! The TV is fixed! I’ll never leave you again old friend.” Gumball and Darwin both gave a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, thank god. I don’t know how much more of that I could take.” Gumball said. 

“That’s one good thing, at least.” Darwin said, trying to look on the bright side. The two sat in silence for a bit, letting it all sink in, until Darwin spoke up. “So,what should we do?” Darwin asked

“What can we do? It’s not like we can stop the show. I don’t even know if we’d want to, who knows what would happen to us if we get cancelled.” 

“Maybe we should tell someone?” 

“Are you crazy? No one can know about this. For one thing, no one would believe us, for another, if they did there would be complete panic, I don’t want anyone else to go through what we’re going through right now.” 

“So, what, we’re just supposed to go on with our normal lives knowing that it’s all fake and carrying the weight of this huge secret on our shoulders?” 

“I...I guess so.” Gumball said, thinking it through. He didn’t like the idea any more than Darwin did, it seemed impossible to just go on with their lives pretending nothing happened, but any other alternative seemed even more impossible. Gumball had to face the facts, they were stuck. “I’m sorry buddy, I just don’t know what else we can do. I don’t have a plan for this.”Suddenly the knob to their bedroom door started turning. Gumball and Darwin quickly stopped talking, afraid that whoever was opening the door would hear them. 

"Anais! What are you doing here?" 

"This is my room too." She replied. "Are you guys ok? You're acting pretty jumpy."

"Jumpy?" Gumball said, letting out some nervous laughter. "No, no, everything's fine. Just a perfectly normal day, right Darwin?" 

"Yup, nothing weird at all." Anais gave them a suspicious look. 

"Well, ok, if you're sure." 

“Of course we’re sure! Why wouldn’t we be?” Gumball said suspiciously. Anais gave them another look as she walked out the door. Her brothers were acting really weird, weirder than usual. Her curiosity got to her and she decided that she was going to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. Meanwhile, Gumball and Darwin both breathed a sigh of relief when Anais left. Luckily she didn’t hear any of what they were talking about.  

“So, we agree to just try to forget about what happened and go on with our lives?” Gumball said.

“I guess, but I don’t know how I can forget about something like that.”

“Me neither, but we don’t exactly have a choice.”


	2. Life Goes On

The next day at school Gumball and Darwin had a hard time digesting what happened the day before. They walked around in a daze, not paying attention, not interacting with anyone, not even getting into their usual mischief. Ever since their TV show revelation they began seeing their world in a whole new way. It was hard to get invested in anything now that they knew it was fake. They had also begun to notice things, little things they had never noticed before. For example, as they walked up to the school building Gumball began to hear some strange music. “Darwin, did you hear that?” Gumball asked.

“Yeah, where’s that music coming from?” They looked around but they couldn’t find any discernable music source.

“This is really weird” Darwin said.

“Yeah, maybe we better ask someone.” Gumball replied. “Hey, Banana Joe! Do you know where that music’s coming from?”

“What music?”

“You know, the music that’s…..” Gumball suddenly stopped talking as he had finally figured out what was going on. Since Banana Joe couldn’t hear the music, but he and Darwin could it was probably a TV show thing. After all, all shows needed background music, right? Darwin had seen the look on Gumball’s face and had quickly figured it out too. “Oh, uh, never mind, it was just my...uh...cell phone.” Gumball said in a nervous tone. “Yeah! My cell phone! I changed the ringtone recently and can never remember. I should….just...go answer it!”

“But, you don’t have a cell phone.” Banana Joe said, but by then Gumball and Darwin had run away.

“Whew! That was close.” Gumball said. “Yeah.” Darwin replied. Neither one was saying it, but they were both thinking the same thing, ignoring this was going to be a lot harder than they thought.

As the day went on more and more people noticed their strange behavior. They were unusually unenergetic and barely talked to anyone, and when they did they weren’t making any sense, asking people if they noticed things that weren’t there. There were some people who were glad about this as it meant that the two weren’t making trouble, but most people were concerned about them, the most concerned of all of them, aside from Anais, was probably Penny, who cornered Gumball in the hall earlier that day. “Hi Gumball!” She said.

“Oh, hey Penny.” Gumball said listlessly, for once not lighting up when he saw her. Penny noticed this and gave him a strange look. “Gumball, are you ok? You seem pretty down.”

“What, me? No, I’m fine.” Gumball said. It tore him up inside that he couldn’t tell her what was going on, but she probably wouldn’t believe him anyway. And besides, she wasn’t real, and neither was he, for that matter, so it’s not like any of this really mattered anyway. “Are you sure? Because you’ve been acting kind of strange all day.” “Yeah, I’m fine, just didn’t get enough sleep last night, that’s all.” Technically this was true as their revelation did keep them up at night. “Well, ok.” Penny said, skeptically “But just know that if you need someone to talk to, I’m here, ok?” “Ok” Gumball replied, thinking instead “If only, If only it were that easy.”


	3. Memory Loss

As the days went by, nothing much had changed. Gumball and Darwin were still listless, still depressed and nobody knew how to snap them out of it. Not even their family could manage to do it. People were starting to get really worried, even the people who didn’t really care before were now wondering what was going on with those two. Until one day, about two weeks after the incident. Gumball woke up to Darwin cheerily saying “good morning Gumball!” ‘Well, seems like he bounced back.’ Gumball thought. He thought two weeks was a little fast to recover from discovering that their entire world was nothing more than an illusion, but Darwin always been the more optimistic one between the two of them, so he didn’t think to much of it. When they got back to school, people were happy to see Darwin back to his old self, everyone except Gumball. Darwin’s happiness was seriously getting on his nerves. How come Darwin could move on when he couldn’t? He was acting like none of what they discovered even mattered. He sat there, stewing in the corner for the rest of class. “Are you ok dude?” Darwin asked. “You look kind of angry, what’s going on?” Gumball couldn’t take it anymore, he just lost it.  

“‘What’s going on?’ Seriously? You have no idea why I’m mad? Look Darwin, maybe you can forget about what happened, but I can’t!”

“What are you talking about?” Darwin asked.

“Don’t play dumb, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“No, I really don’t.”

“You know, the car, the glitches, the show.” 

“Gumball, what are you talking about? What show?”

“What? You seriously don’t remember?” 

“Can’t say that I do.” 

“How is that possible? I know we said that we would try and forget about it but I didn’t think you would actually forget about it.” Suddenly the ramifications of this hit Gumball all at once. Now that Darwin had forgotten all about the TV show, that meant that Gumball had to bear the weight of the knowledge all on his own. “No, no no no no, Darwin you have to remember! There were all these glitches, and we had this big fight, but we made up in the car, but then no one was driving, and we crashed into the mall, and discovered that the glitches were caused by a bad tv signal, and somehow we were affected. Darwin, please try to remember.”

“I don’t understand Gumball, are you saying that all of Elmore is just a TV show? Are you sure this wasn’t just a bad dream?”

“It wasn’t a dream, it was real! Or, as real as you can get around here. Oh man, what is going on?” Gumball cried out in desperation before collapsing in the hallway and bursting into tears. Darwin was caught off guard and didn’t know what to do. Gumball was clearly upset, he couldn’t remember the last time he cried at school, but he still had no memory of what happened and thought that Gumball was going a little nuts. 

“Look Gumball, I don’t normally say this, but maybe you should talk to someone? Mr. Small maybe?” 

“I’m not crazy!” Gumball protested. 

“I don’t think you’re crazy, just that maybe you could use some help, there’s nothing wrong with that, you know.” Darwin said, although, secretly, he did think Gumball was being a little crazy, I mean, a TV show? How would he have even come up with something like that? Gumball wasn’t fooled, he knew Darwin thought he was a little nuts, but what he couldn’t figure out was why, Darwin was right next to him for most of it, how could he just forget? Was it possible that he dreamt the entire thing? But then what would Darwin have been upset about during the past two weeks? None of this added up, it wasn’t making sense. 

“Gumball, maybe you should go home, get some rest?” Darwin said, concerned.

“Darwin, are you sure that you don’t remember anything about that day? What about the televisions going haywire, do you remember that?” 

“I’m sorry Gumball, I don’t remember any of that.” Gumball was dismayed. For as long as he could remember Darwin had always been his partner in crime. Whenever there was some sort of adventure, he was always by his side. That was the one good thing about this whole mess, that he was going through it with his best friend, but now that Darwin couldn’t remember…….

For the first time in a long while, Gumball Watterson was really and truly alone. 


	4. The Sister

Alright, this was it, after all this time, Anais had finally decided to confront Gumball and Darwin, she knew her brothers, and they had never acted like this before, and given some of their adventures, that was saying a lot. She cornered Gumball as he walked through the door. She was a little disappointed, she wanted to catch both Gumball and Darwin together, now she had to interrogate them separately. She thought it was a little weird that Gumball was alone, usually he and Darwin were always together, she added that to her little mental list of ways Gumball and Darwin were acting weird lately.

“We need to talk.” Anais said. 

"Anais, I don't have time to talk right now." Gumball said, Anais wasn’t going to give up that easily. 

"Something's going on with you, you and Darwin both, ever since the day the TV was going haywire." 

"Wait, you remember that day?" Gumball said, shocked.

"Of course, why wouldn't I?" 

"Because Darwin doesn't, I thought I was going nuts and just made that day up." Suddenly Gumball thought of something. "Nothing particularly weird happened to you that day, did it?” 

“No more than usual.” Anais said. Gumball’s mind was racing, so Anais still remembers but Darwin doesn’t, but Anais wasn’t with him when the strange stuff happened and Darwin was. “I think there’s some kind of force erasing people’s memories of weird things happening in Elmore.” Gumball felt a weird sense of Deja Vu as he was speaking the words. This all felt strangely familiar, like he had gone through something like this before. He waited for Anais to start laughing at him. Surely his super smart sister wouldn’t accept his “mysterious force” theory. But to his surprise, she didn’t start laughing. Instead she said “I’ve heard about something like that before.”

“You have?” 

“Yeah, Mr Small was talking about something like that awhile back, of course I didn’t believe him, but….. if more than one person came to that conclusion then maybe, just maybe, there's something to it.” She didn't really believe Gumball, but she thought it was kind of Eerie how close his theory was to Mr Small’s, usually those two didn’t see eye to eye.

“Really? I don’t remember him saying anything about it.” 

“I’m not surprised, you tend to block out anything that doesn't have to do with you.” 

“Alright, let's go see Mr. Small, see what he knows about this.” Gumball suggested. About a minute later, they were knocking on Mr. Small’s door. 

“Ah, children, come on in.” Mr. Small said, warmly. “How can I help you?” 

“Well…” Anais began “this is going to sound a little weird….”

“Oh, that’s ok!” Mr. Small encouraged “life is full of weird things.”

“Right.” Anais replied. “Do you remember that conspiracy theory you were talking about awhile back? The one about the dimension of the world’s mistakes and how it erases people’s memories?”  

“Sorry, you must be thinking about someone else, I’ve never heard of that theory. It’s a pretty good one though, you should look into it more.”

“But how can that be? I remember you talking about it.” Anais said, confused.

“Sorry, doesn't ring a bell.” 

“Are you sure, think hard, haven’t you ever heard of something like this before?” Gumball asked. 

“Nope, never. But I’ve got plenty of other conspiracy theories for you, if you like.” 

“Um, no, it’s ok, we're just going to stick with this one for now, anyway, we’re going to head back to class.” Gumball said nervously. 

“Ok, but feel free to drop in anytime.” Mr. Small said as they closed the door. 

“Gumball, I think you were right, something weird is definitely going on here. I mean, he had absolutely no clue what I was talking about.” Anais said, kind of freaked out. 

“You see! That’s what happened to me with Darwin! I tried to talk to him about what happened that day and he couldn’t remember a thing, even though I was right there next to him when it happened.”

“So what’s the common thread here, what is it that this mysterious force or whatever doesn't want people to remember? What exactly did Darwin forget?” Gumball hesitated. He was fine bringing Anais into this memory loss plot, but he didn’t feel like telling her about the TV show thing. Despite her intelligence, she was only four years old, he didn’t think she could handle it, he was barely handling it himself, he didn’t want his little sister to go through that. 

“I’m sorry sis, I can’t tell you.”

“You can’t tell me? Even after that?”

“You don’t understand, you would think I’m crazy.”

“I thought you were crazy when you talked about missing memories and you turned out to be right about that. I think we’re past crazy at this point.”

“But it would change everything.” Gumball insisted.

“More than it already has?” 

“Yes!” Gumball shouted. “I’m sorry, but you’re just going to have to trust me on this one.” Anais went quiet. Gumball looked incredibly distressed, she didn’t like seeing her brother this way. She still thought it would be best if he told her his secret, but she didn’t want to push him anymore. 

“Ok, I’ll drop it for now, but I am going to find out eventually. So what can you tell me?” Gumball sighed, relieved that Anais was finally letting it go. 

“Well, it seems Mr. Small’s memory and Darwin’s memory both had something to do with the world not being what it seems.” 

“So there’s some kind of secret it wants to protect.” 

“Right.” Gumball was pretty sure he knew what the secret was, but he wasn't about to tell Anais. “So, If all of this is true, how come I still remember what happened? I even saw more of the weirdness than Darwin did. ” 

“I don’t know. According to your theory, they could be gone any minute.” Gumball pondered this. There was something to be said for blissful ignorance, and he did kind of wish that he didn’t know about the TV show. Questioning your existence and the existence of everyone around you is not exactly fun. But on the other hand, he did want to know what was going on, plus, ever since the whole Zach thing, he didn't like his mind being messed with. 

“Well, then let’s try and get to the bottom of this before they do.” 


	5. An Unexpected Ally?

 

Rob, aka Dr. Wrecker was in the school library working on a new evil scheme. He had just come up with this brilliant idea of a bus hijacking under the guise of a safety lecture. He could blow up Gumball and Darwin and get some money too! It was brilliant. He was just putting the final touches on it when Gumball walked in the library with Anais. 

“Ok, so how exactly are we going to get Darwin’s memories back?” Anais asked Gumball.

“I don’t know, I haven’t really gotten that far. All I know is that there's some sort of force erasing people’s memories in Elmore.” Rob suddenly got a little curious, were they talking about the void? But he shouldn’t have any memory of it. Rob decided to start eavesdropping. 

“Well, what do you know about this force?”

“Nothing! I don’t know if it’s a physical thing or just a mental state, I don’t know how it takes memories or why, I’ve got nothing! It’s hopeless.”

“It’s not just memories.” Rob contributed.  _ Why did I say that? _ He wondered to himself. He certainly didn’t want to help his nemesis, did he? Both Gumball and Anais looked at him questioningly, just then noticing that he there. Did he hear that entire conversation? That would be hard to explain. But the weird thing was, he seemed to already know what they were talking about. 

“What do you mean?” Gumball asked him

“It’s not just memories, things and even people end up in there too. And whoever or whatever is left in there is completly forgotten.” Both Gumball and Anais gasped at this new development. If this was true, this was much bigger than either of them had even thought possible. 

“How do you know all this?” Gumball asked Rob.

“I, uh, I was in there, for a time. I eventually managed to escape.” Gumball and Anais both looked at him in total awe.

“You were in there? What was it like? How did you manage to get out? Why were you in there in the first place? How did you get there?” Both Gumball and Anais were talking a mile a minute and asking a million questions. 

“Well, I was there because I was considered to be one of the world’s mistakes. That’s where all the world’s mistakes go by the way.”

“Just like Mr Small's theory.” Anais noted.

“Wow, a dimension of the world’s mistakes. I was way off with my “erasing people’s memories of weird things in Elmore” theory.” Gumball said. 

“No, it does that too, don’t you think people would notice if one of their friends went missing?” Gumball nodded, it did make sense, why else wouldn't people question their missing things?

“But no one disappeared, Darwin just forgot about an entire day.” Gumball pointed out.

“Hmm, what exactly happened that day?” Rob asked

“Uh, um.” Gumball stammered. If he wasn’t going to tell his little sister what was going on he sure wasn’t telling a virtual stranger. 

“Forget it, he’s not talking.” Anais explained. “All he would say is that it had something to do with the world not being what it seemed.” 

“Yup, that would do it.” Rob confirmed. “Elmore seems to want it’s secrets kept.” 

“Yeah, I figured that too,do you know what any of those secrets are?” Anais asked. 

“Well, the existence of the void, for one. The existence of a dimension of the world’s mistakes is kind of a big deal. For example, would you believe that you yourself went into the void?” Rob said, speaking directly to Gumball

“What are you talking about? No I didn’t.” 

“Yes, you did. You and Darwin and Mr Small went in to rescue your friend Molly. You just can’t remember. I think we’ve established that this thing can wipe memories.” 

“Oh my….Oh my god.” Gumball exclaimed. That must have been why he was feeling a strange sense of deja vu this entire time, he’d done all of this before. His mind was reeling. He never even thought that he could be a victim of the mind erasure too. He probably should have, but it just never crossed his mind.

“That must be why Mr. Small couldn’t remember anything about his conspiracy theory.” Anais said. 

“So, wait, how come you remember everything?” Gumball asked Rob.

“I’m not sure. When I first got out of the void I had amnesia.” Rob said. Gumball gasped.

“That’s why you couldn’t remember anything when we discovered you in our house!” Rob was pleased that Gumball actually remembered that. He wasn't used to being remembered. 

“Yeah, but something Darwin said triggered my memories somehow. It was similar to something you said in the void.”

“Ok, so maybe we could try that with Darwin, we could try doing or saying something that would trigger his memories.” 

“Maybe….” Gumball said. Right now he wanted to know more about the void. What was it like? What was in there? why did it exist? He hadn't been caught up in an adventure like this since the day he learned about the TV show and it was nice to focus on something other than that. Though he did get the feeling that these two things were connected somehow. 

“So, do you know where this void is?” Gumball asked Rob. 

“Oh no, don’t tell me that you’re actually thinking of going in there.” Anais said.

“Why not?” 

“I’ll give you a million reasons why not. First of all, we don’t know anything about this thing or have any idea how to survive in there. Secondly, this thing traps people inside of it on a regular basis, so there’s a very good chance that we won’t get out.” 

“He did.” Gumball said, pointing out Rob. “and according to him I managed to get in and out once before.” 

“From what we’ve been hearing, I’m guessing that you guys were incredibly lucky just to get out once.” Rob bristled a bit at this, after his trip out of the void he didn’t consider himself to be lucky. “What are you even trying to accomplish by going in there anyway? It’s not like Darwin’s memories are a physical thing, we can’t just go in there and grab them.”

“Ok, ok, you’re right, I won’t go in there.” Gumball said reluctantly. Rob noticed this and started smiling. This was perfect! Gumball actually wanted to go into the void! All he had to do was encourage him to jump in there and boom! No more Gumball Watterson. Forget the bus hijacking, this was the perfect plan. “I could probably help you, you know.” Rob said. 

“Of course, after all of the help you’ve already given us there’s no way we’re leaving you out now.” Gumball said. “So, come on Rich, let’s come up with a plan.”

“It’s Rob, actually” Rob said in a somewhat aggressive tone.

“Right, Rob, sorry.” The gang headed out of the library. When Anais had gone running ahead of them, Gumball whispered to Rob. “Hey, I didn’t want to say anything in front of Anais, but is it because of the void that you look like this? Maybe I’m wrong, I mean, there are a lot of creative creatures in the town of Elmore so it’s not like you look especially weird or anything. But sometimes you do this glitching thing and it doesn't always look like you're all there, and since you said you were in the void I just thought that maybe…..” Gumball trailed off, afraid that he might have offended him. Rob looked at him surprised, he didn’t think Gumball would figure that out. He must be smarter than he looks.

“Yeah, I got this way after escaping the void.” 

“But wait, you said that I had gone in and out of the void too, and I’m fine. So how did you end up like this?”

“Well, my journey was a bit more…...traumatic than yours.” Rob said, refusing to elaborate.

“Wow, I’m sorry that happened to you man.” Gumball said. He was genuinely sorry and knowing about the TV show thing just made it even worse. Why would someone want to put him through something like that? He was actually starting to get angry at the writers of this show, anyone who had a bad life was given that life on purpose. How could they do this to people? Maybe it wasn’t real but it sure felt real to them. But then again, a show with no conflict would be a pretty bad show, and they would probably be cancelled by now. It was a vicious cycle with no way out.

“Well, thank you.” Rob said, surprised. Why was this kid suddenly being so nice to him? After all, he just blew right past him while he was in the void. So why was he suddenly acting like he cares now? This was making it hard for Rob to go through with his plan, he was just being so nice. But he had to, Gumball was the hero and he was the villain, this was the way it had to go.


	6. Plans and Plots

After their little talk, the group agreed not to do anything irrational and crazy, like go jumping into the void, at least for now. (Well, Rob pretended to agree, he still hoped to coerce Gumball into going in there.) So Gumball, for once in his life, decided to take his little sister’s advice and tried triggering Darwin’s memories with verbal cues. 

“I’m glad you’re feeling better today Gumball, you had me really worried there for a bit.” 

“Yeah, I guess you could say that  _ all’s well that ends well _ ” Darwin gave him a strange look. 

“Yeah….I guess you could, it doesn't really fit the situation though.” 

“I just hope I didn’t worry you too much, I would feel  _ utterly horrible,  _ if I did.”

“You don’t have to feel utterly horrible, you were upset, it’s ok for you to be upset.” 

“I guess so, I just thought that  _ something weird was going on.”  _  Darwin gave him another strange look.

“Are you sure you’re ok? You keep over-emphasizing words. Is there something you’re trying to tell me?” 

“What? No.” Gumball said nervously “What could I possibly be trying to tell you?” Darwin gave him a confused look.

“But just yesterday you were desperately trying to get me to remember something, are you sure this doesn't have anything to do with that?” Oh no, Darwin was onto him. 

“No, of course not.” He lied. “Yesterday was just a case of temporary insanity, probably brought on by my _ fat head _ .”

“See? You’re doing it again! Are you sure you’re ok?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine” Gumball said. He didn’t try doing it again. It was too dangerous, Darwin was starting to figure out what he was trying to do.

“This isn’t working.” Gumball told the others as they all got together later that day. “He doesn't remember a thing and he was starting to think I was nuts. Plus we were having a fight that day so a lot of the things I said to him then were pretty insulting.” Through no fault of my own, Gumball thought. “I don’t want to repeat those things, we’ll just end up fighting again. We need some new ideas.” 

“Maybe we should track down the void? See what we can find out about it?” Rob suggested. 

“NO! I want to exhaust every possible alternative before going to the void.” Anais said. The whole idea of the place scared her to pieces but she didn’t want to admit it. 

“Ok, but if nothing else works, then we are going to go to the void, deal?” Gumball told Anais. He found it a little strange that Rob wanted to go check out the void, given his history with the place he figured that he would be the one most opposed to going. But it was nice that Rob appeared to be on his side. 

“Alright, deal.” Anais said reluctantly. The rest of the week Gumball and Anais tried various methods to get Darwin’s memory back. Rob begged off, saying that since Darwin didn’t know him very well he wouldn’t be of much help getting his memory back, but he did feed them knowledge of the void whenever he was asked, so they kept him around. In the end, it was Gumball who did most of the work, seeing as how he was the only one who knew what happened that day. After every attempt they would all meet up and discuss what happened and discuss other strategies. Rob was actually starting to really enjoy these little get togethers, it was almost like he had friends again. But, he had to remind himself, this was Gumball and his family, he couldn't be friends with them. He was the villain, that was his role, and until Gumball was out of the way he wouldn't be able to change that.

This went on for a while, with the team trying everything that they could possibly think of in order to get Darwin’s memory back. Eventually though, Anais had to give in, both Rob and Gumball were begging to go to the void, and she was running out of ways to stop them. She couldn’t think of any other ways to get Darwin’s memory back while still staying in this dimension. Personally she didn’t think it was worth the risk, but Gumball seemed almost desperate to get his memory back of that day, it was actually starting to scare her a little. Plus, her intellectual mind just couldn’t resist the temptation of a dimension left unexplored. She too was curious about the place. Eventually she agreed to just take a look inside the hole between the two dimensions to get an idea of the place, not go in, not yet, they needed to see what they were dealing with. Rob led them to a fold in the earth in where his old house used to be. It brought him mixed feelings being back here again, but this was the only place where he knew he could open a gateway to the void. 

“This is it? It’s just a regular neighborhood, what exactly are we looking for here?” Gumball asked. 

“Just look closer” Rob told them. Gumball didn’t get it at first but he took Rob’s advice and looked closer. Suddenly he could see something that he had somehow managed to miss this entire time. All of the stuff behind him was completely flat! It was like someone took a giant photograph and put it behind him. ‘ _ Because that’s exactly what they did.’   _ Gumball realized. ‘ _ This is all a TV show, right? This must be the background.’  _ With this realization another piece of the puzzle came into place. If the background wasn’t real, if it was flat, then this couldn’t be a live action show, they had to be animated, drawn, or made by computers. So he really wasn’t real, just a series of moving pictures. He gave his body a quick pat down, he sure felt real. This was a bit hard for him to wrap his head around, but it wasn’t as mind blowing as some of the other stuff he’d found out about his world lately. Anais, meanwhile, was freaking out. 

“What the what?” she shouted, making this the first time she had ever done so. “What is going on here?” 

“Just wait, it gets even freakier.” Rob told them. “Ok, so you grab that end of the fold, and I’ll grab this end.” Gumball and Anais did as they were told and they opened it up to find the void. Gumball and Anais’ eyes went wide as saucers as they took it all in. The place was almost completely TV static, with floating platforms and random things just floating around, but before they could get a good look they felt someone shove them and they fell inside of the void. Rob had pushed them in


	7. Gumball Makes a Heroic Speech

Gumball was confused and a bit disorientated until he saw Rob laughing evilly near the entrance. “What the what man? Did you just push us in? Why would you do that?” 

“Because I am your nemesis!” Rob shouted. 

“Wait, he’s your arch enemy? Why didn’t you tell me?” Anais asked Gumball. 

“I thought that we had moved past that. That this missing memory and void stuff was a little more important than our stupid little rivalry.”

“Well, you thought wrong.” Rob said. 

“But, I thought we actually had fun together this week, did none of that mean anything to you?” Rob sighed, of course it meant something to him, he couldn’t pretend that it didn’t. He might as well tell him why he was doing this, he deserved to know. And besides, a lot of villains did the whole big monologue thing, yeah, he could make it work.

“It-It did” Rob admitted. “But I don’t have a choice. I never wanted to be the villain, you know? But I have to be or else I’ll end up back here. You don’t know what it’s like, stuck in a role that the world assigns you, with nothing you can do to change it.” Rob’s words rang true to Gumball, it just seemed so familiar. It was a lot like what he went through when he first found out about the show. Could it be possible, did Rob know about the TV show too? 

“Actually, I do.” Gumball told him,  Rob tossed aside his comment, how could he possibly have any idea what he was going through? “These past few weeks I’ve discovered something about this world that left me shocked and turned everything upside down, it seemed as though everything had changed. And I felt stuck, there was nothing I could do to change the world I live in or to change my role in it. Do you think I like being the guy who always goes on crazy adventures? I usually just end up embarrassing myself and everybody gets to see.” Gumball emphasized the word everybody in that sentence, hoping that Rob would figure out what he was hinting at. “I couldn’t even talk about it with anyone, no one would believe me and even if they did I couldn’t bear to tell anyone what was going on, why do you think I’ve been trying so hard to get Darwin’s memory back? It’s so I wouldn’t have to get through this alone anymore. So, I get it, I really do. But, we’ve already come so far. We’ve already defied the world. We know about the void, we know about something that we’re not supposed to! So maybe that means that we actually can break out of our roles, we can make our own decisions, we can change our destinies! Maybe I’m wrong, maybe we are just playthings in this mixed up crazy world, and we actually were supposed to know about the void in this crazy roundabout way, but somehow I don’t think so! Either way,we’ll never know unless we try.”  

Rob was trying to process everything that was said. Gumball knew about the TV show too? There was no way, it wasn’t possible. But he couldn’t interpret his little speech any other way. It was the only explanation, he had to know too. And Darwin knew as well given what Gumball had said. So that was the memory he was trying to get back this whole time? That actually made a lot of sense now that he thought about it, it explained why Gumball was so secretive about what exactly Darwin forgot. He probably should've payed more attention to that, but he was so focused on his revenge plan that he barely even noticed that he was acting strange. But he was, and he had been acting like that for weeks, everyone said so. This was why? Then the second part of his words sunk in, he actually thought that he could change their destinies? Rob was doubtful, but a part of it made sense, after all, he had done more than simply know about the void, he had escaped, could that have really been planned? He didn’t think so, he was meant to stay in the void forever, but he didn’t. Maybe he really could change his destiny, maybe he really didn’t have to be the bad guy. Gumball was right, he would never know unless he tried. He slowly reached in to pull Gumball and Anais out of the void. Gumball smiled, he knew it, he knew he wasn’t such a bad guy, he even admitted that he didn’t want to be the villain. Suddenly a gust of wind blew at Rob from behind. “No!” Gumball and Anais shouted. But it was too late, Rob had fallen into the void too, and the hole was quickly closing up behind him. There was no way out. 


	8. We Need To Have A Talk

“I can’t believe I’m back here again, and it’s all your fault! I shouldn't have listened to you!” Rob said.

“What! Me?! None of us would be in here if you hadn’t pushed us in here in the first place!” 

“Guys!” Anais shouted, getting between the two of them. “I see your point, but I think we have more important things to deal with now! And can you stop talking in riddles and tell me what the heck you were talking about a minute ago? I get that you didn’t want to involve me but I think it’s safe to say that I’m pretty darn involved at this point. If i’m going to be stuck here than I at least want to know why.” Gumball sighed, Anais was right, if she was going to trapped here with the rest of them she should at least know what was going on. He was going to have to tell her the truth. 

“Ok, ok, you’re right. If we’re all gonna be in this mess, you should at least know why.” Gumball took a deep breath. “Look, this may sound crazy, and you might think that I’m insane, but trust me when I say that I’m telling you the truth.” He braced himself before continuing. “None of this is real, our house, our school, all of Elmore, even us. It’s not real. What happened that day is that we were experiencing these static…..interruptions all day, I don’t know how to describe it, it caused me to stutter, freeze, teleport around, think bad TV reception. Eventually we ended up in the back of the car where nobody was driving and we crashed into the mall right into the TV room. The newscaster guy came on and said that the town of Elmore was experiencing satellite broadcast issues and then they lost the signal…...and so did we. And I don’t mean like our TV lost the signal I mean us, like physically. And the only way that could happen, the reason we had all those static interruptions all day, was if we were on TV ourselves.” Gumball cringed, waiting for her reaction. He had to admit, it felt good to actually tell someone what was going on. 

“I can’t believe you Gumball! Making up this crazy story so you don’t have to tell me what’s really going on.”

“I’m not! I swear, it’s true!” 

“Oh yeah? Then prove it!” 

“Fine, then I will.” Mistakes of the world, huh? He was sure he could find something in here. Aha! “What about this? Take a closer look at this building, doesn’t it look a lot like an early model of our house?” Anais had to admit that it did look awfully similar, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. 

“Yeah, but….” 

“Or look at that, a giant drawing of my face. Now why would that be floating around in here? Or that? A CGI version of Darwin. Why else would any of that be here? The evidence is all around you, heck, just think back! Why do you think dad getting a job would destroy the universe? Why do you think that all of our problems seem to just fix themselves? Why do you think that it’s been four years and none of us has aged a day? And do you remember when we lost all our money and all of Elmore started disappearing? Didn’t it look a lot like we were inside a computer? Or a storyboard? For heaven’s sake,Anais, our mother’s arm was literally drawn back on! We even got here by splitting a hole into the background!” Anais was getting overwhelmed, what he was saying made sense, it made way too much sense. But there was no way, It couldn’t be possible, could it? Tears started to prick into her eyes. 

“But it can’t be! It just can’t be! That would mean……” Anais gave in fully to the tears and started sobbing. The evidence was too much, it just had to be true. Gumball bent down and hugged her to try and comfort his little sister. 

“I know, that’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I’ve thought through all the implications myself, trust me. I didn’t think you could handle it. Can you blame me for still wanting to protect my little sister?” 

“So that’s why you were acting so depressed these past couple of weeks.” Anais realized. 

“Yeah, it’s kind of a hard realization to have.” Gumball said. Anais nodded, she knew that all too well now. Gumball held on to his sister for a little while longer until she stopped crying. “Ok, I’ve spilled my guts, so how did you figure it out?” He asked Rob. Rob thought about denying it, but what would be the point? Gumball already knew that he knew, besides it would be nice to talk to someone about it, even if that someone was his former sworn enemy.  

“How did you know that I knew?” He asked. 

“When you said all that stuff about being stuck in a role you didn’t want, I kinda figured. And I knew it was true when I saw the look on your face when I was talking about how I understood and how we could change our destinies, fat lotta good that did us, huh?” 

“No, I think you had a point with all that stuff, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to escape the void the way I did.  But that little speech you gave was pretty sappy.”

“Hey, I’m allowed to get sappy when our lives are on the line. Well, not exactly our lives, our existence?” Rob nodded, he did have a point there. “So how did you figure it out? Me and Darwin thought we were the only ones who knew. Until Darwin lost his memory, that is.” 

“Well, when I got out of the void I started questioning why I was sent there in the first place, why I was considered a mistake. Plus, ever since I got out and got disfigured by the void my memories don't get erased. So I remember all the weird stuff everyone else forgets. It was pretty easy to figure out because of that.

“Wow, so you’ve known a lot longer than I have, and I didn't even notice. No wonder you hate me.”

“Huh?”

“If it's true what you say and I’m the main character then I was basically the star of the show while you were forgotten, disfigured, and had your entire world change. And I didn't even bother to remember your name. No wonder you hate me so much.” Rob felt guilty, he felt like he had to comfort him, but how? He did hate for all that stuff, or at least he used to. 

“It’s not really your fault, you couldn’t help any of that, it’s this world. They were the ones who decided that I had to go through all of this, they put me in this situation. And you were right, I didn’t think about what it would be like to be the main character, to have basically your entire life broadcast like that, that can’t be much fun either.”

“Yeah, but it’s nothing compared to what you’ve been through.” 

“True, but like I said, it’s not really your fault. Though it would be nice if you did remember my name.” Gumball smiled a little at that.

“Like I could ever forget it now, after all this.” 

“You could, the void could work it’s magic on you again. That’s assuming we ever get out of here.” Rob sighed. “For what it’s worth, I really am sorry I pushed you in here. I thought maybe if I could get rid of the main character of the show then maybe I wouldn’t have to be the villain anymore.” 

“Not a bad plan, but it could have easily gone the other way and with no main character there would be no show, so you would doom yourself too.” 

“Yeah, but I figured it would be worth the risk. That at least if the world ends I wouldn’t have to live like this anymore.” Gumball thought that was one of the saddest things he had ever heard. 

“Don’t worry Rob, I’m gonna find a way to get us all out of here, I promise.” 

“Get us  _ all  _ out of here?” Rob asked. Gumball gave him a strange look. 

“Of course, why would you even say that?” 

“Well as long as we’re confessing…..I should probably tell you how I got out of here in the first place.” 

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. Maybe we can get out the same way this time.” 

“Somehow I doubt that.” Rob said. “Remember when I told you that you had been here before?”

“Yeah.” 

“Well, when you were there you kind of left me. You went to get your friend Molly while you just blew right past me. I called out but I guess you didn’t hear me. I got out by clinging to the back of the van you guys left on but the hole between dimensions was closing so I kinda got ripped through the dimensions, that’s how I got disfigured. That's another reason I hated you, along with the whole main character thing.” Gumball was shocked, did he really do that? It didn’t sound like him. But he still couldn’t remember what happened, so he could have. “I’m sorry Rob, I don’t remember. I’m really sorry if I did that. I wish I could offer you an explanation, but like I said, I don’t remember any of it. I probably just didn’t see you. I’m sure that we would have saved you if we’d known you were there. I’m going to make sure to save you this time, I promise.” 

“Thanks Gumball, I really needed to hear that. I guess I can't really blame you for forgetting about me, that's kind of what the void does. It's not your fault that it erased your memory of me.” 

“So, friends?” Gumball asked offering his hand to shake. Rob considered the offer, he didn’t really hate him anymore, and he did have fun hanging out with him this week. More to the point, Gumball actually seemed to care about what happened to him, nobody else had. 

“Sure, friends.” Rob said, shaking Gumball’s hand. 

“Ok, I’m glad everything worked out between the two of you, but there’s still the little problem of us being stuck here.” Anais pointed out. 

“Right, I don’t suppose either of you have a plan?” Gumball asked. The other two shook their heads, no one was sure what they were going to do. “Well, I guess we have a lot of time to figure it out.” 


	9. And We Cut Back To Elmore

Darwin Watterson got up, got ready for school, and ate breakfast, just like every other day, but something felt off. He couldn’t put his finger on it but it was like something was missing. No, it was more than that, it was like he was missing his other half. And he had this killer headache. He rubbed his temples hoping that would calm it down. “Are you ok sweetheart?” his mom asked him, concerned. His mother, a blue cat, his sense of deja vu struck again, but he saw his mother every day, where was this coming from? 

“I’m fine mom, just a headache.” 

“Well good, we wouldn’t want you to miss school. Now let's get on our way.”

“On my way?” Darwin repeated, that was familiar too. But it was a common phrase, why would it hold any special connection? He started to remember a little tune that went with it and started humming it. It was a catchy song but he didn't know what it had to do with anything. He brushed it off and headed to school, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. In Miss Simian’s class they talked about siblings and he got that weird deja vu feeling again, but he didn’t have any siblings, he was an only child, so it didn’t make any sense. He got it again in another class when someone was chewing gum, and again when someone mentioned their best friend. By the time he got home his headache had gotten so bad it felt like his brain was going to pop out of his skull. “Mom? I think my headache has gotten worse.” He said. When he saw his mother he got that weird sense of deja vu again, blue cat, what was so significant about her being a blue cat? He could vaguely remember another blue cat, a younger one. Why couldn’t he picture him clearly? What was so important about this other blue cat? She gave Darwin some tylenol and he tried to distract himself by watching TV, but when he turned it on and got only static it got even worse. What could possibly be significant about TV static? He changed the channel to cartoons and got up to get himself a snack when he saw an open bag of gumballs on the table. Gumballs, something about it just seemed so familiar. He picked up a blue one and stared at it for a long time. But it didn’t make sense, he hated blue gumballs, he always prefered the red or the green ones. No, that wasn’t right, he loved blue gumballs, he just didn’t want to eat them. No, he didn’t love blue gumballs, he loved A blue gumball. Where was it? He didn’t know why but it felt really important that he get it back. Blue gumball, blue gumball, blue gumball…….Suddenly Darwin gave a huge gasp “GUMBALL!” he shouted as memories came flooding back. Gumball, his brother and his best friend, always by his side. How could he have forgotten about him? And Anais! His little sister! What happened to them? Where were they? Why couldn’t he remember them at first? More memories started to resurface, about a missing friend who no one could remember and a journey to a place where all the world’s mistakes were kept. That must be it! That must be where Gumball was! Suddenly he heard a low ominous rumble and felt things shake. An earthquake maybe? He waited for the shaking to die down before he ran to get his parents. “Mom! Dad!” He shouted, ditching the formalities. When his siblings were in danger, politeness be damned. 

“Darwin? What is it? What’s wrong?” His parents said, concerned. 

“Gumball and Anais are trapped in a dimension of the world’s mistakes! We have to go save them!” Both his parents looked at each other confused. They had no idea what Darwin was even talking about. Was this some sort of game?

“Who are Gumball and Anais?” Nicole asked him. 

“You know, Gumball, Anais, my siblings, your children!” 

“Uh, Darwin, you are our only child.” Oh no, not even their parents could remember them? This was bad, this was really bad.

“No! You have other children! My older brother, Gumball, and my little sister, Anais! You just can’t remember! It’s a side effect of being trapped in the other dimension!” His parents gave each other another concerned look.

“Honey, are you sure you’re feeling ok? Do you need to lie down?” 

“Ugh! No! I’m fine! I’m telling you the truth!” Darwin said, getting frustrated. This must have been how Gumball felt when he was trying to tell him about the show. The show…..suddenly more memories started coming back, about a ride in a car with no one driving, various glitches that transported them around, a newscast, satellite broadcast issues, losing the signal. Oh my god, Gumball was telling the truth! Suddenly the rumbling got louder and the shaking was so violent that chunks of the house started falling. The remaining three family members jumped into each other's arms. 

“What’s going on?” Richard asked. 

“I don’t know, I think it’s an earthquake.” Nicole said. Darwin was about to agree until he saw the sky. It seemed that the sky itself was splitting apart and being replaced with...static. Oh no. 

“Um, I don’t think it’s an earthquake.” Darwin said, pointing out the sky to his parents. He didn’t know how, but he was sure that this had something to do with the TV show and his sibling’s disappearance. But why now? As far as he could tell this whole ‘people disappearing’ thing happened all the time, what was different now? Well, he reasoned, so far all the people that it’s taken have been relatively unimportant. That was it! Gumball was important, he and Darwin went on exciting adventures all the time. That must be what the show was about! So without him there was no show, and no show means no Elmore. Oh god, this was the end of the world, the actual end of the world. He had to get Gumball back before it was too late! Darwin broke away from his parent’s grip and ran toward where he thought the void was. It took him a while but he eventually found a fold in the earth. He ripped it open with sheer adrenaline and lept in there without a second thought. He was a bit awestruck once he was in. Sure, he remembered it, but it was another thing entirely being back here again. He quickly shook it off, he had a job to do, he had to find his siblings.  

“Gumball? Anais?” Darwin shouted while looking for them. “Gumball? Anais?” Suddenly he spotted them. They were here! They were alright! Darwin broke into a wide grin and shouted again. “Gumball! Anais!” 

“Darwin!” Gumball and Anais shouted. They both ran over and gave him a huge hug. “But, how? How did you get here? How did you even know where we were? I didn’t think you even knew about this place.” Gumball said. 

“Look, it’s a long story, but I’ll try and explain it the best I can. When you first got in here this place tried to work it’s weird magic on me by erasing my memories of you. But for some reason it didn’t last, maybe because I spend so much time with you that the void couldn’t possibly erase them all. It messed with my mind for a while but I actually ended up gaining memories, so I remembered our little trip into the void and I figured you had to be in here. But it wasn’t long before Elmore started collapsing around me. It turns out that without you, the main character, there is no show, and yes, I remember that too, and I’m sorry I didn’t believe you earlier. So with you gone, reality is literally crumbling out there. So we’d better get out of here fast before reality disappears completely.” Gumball, Anais, and Darwin all ran toward the exit. Rob hung back, unsure if he was welcome in this rescue mission. Gumball noticed this and stopped running. 

“Come on, you too. You honestly think I'm going to leave you in here a second time?” Rob smiled and followed Gumball. “We're taking one more person with us out of here.” Gumball told Darwin. “You probably don't remember him, this is….” 

“Rob, I remember.” Darwin cut in. “Hey, I didn't know you were in here too.” 

“Yeah, I have a lot of things to tell you about Rob.” Gumball said. 

“That's fine, but let's get out of here first.”

“Ok, but how are we going to get out of here?” 

“Well, I opened a hole right over the-” but Darwin abruptly stopped his sentence. The hole wasn’t there, it had closed up. They were all stuck. 


	10. Gumball Makes a Heroic Sacrifice

“Ok, that was my bad, I probably should have had more of a plan before rushing in here to save you guys. I was just so worried about you. Now we’re all stuck here.” 

“So what do we do now? Just wait around for someone else to come and rescue us?” Rob asked. 

“There’s no time, remember what I said about how reality is literally crumbling out there? There might not even be an Elmore if we stay here much longer. There’s no sho-” Darwin was about to explain everything but stopped himself. He didn’t know if he should break their rule about not talking about the show, especially in front of Rob and Anais. Gumball saw his reaction and told him “it’s ok, everyone here knows about the show.” 

“Really? Everyone?” He asked. He figured Gumball eventually told Anais, but how did Rob know? 

“Everyone.” Gumball confirmed. Darwin was about to ask how but decided that could wait until they got out. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. We have to focus on getting out of this void. There’s no show if our main character is stuck in here, and no show means no Elmore.” 

“So, what you’re saying is, all of Elmore is doomed unless we get Gumball out of here.” Anais asked.

“Pretty much, yeah.” 

“So, our number one priority has to be getting Gumball out of this void.”

“No way.” Gumball said. “If i’m getting out then we’re all getting out. I’m not leaving you in here!” He wasn’t going to make that mistake again. Rob smiled, it looked like Gumball was actually taking what he said to heart. 

“I agree that the best course of action would be to get us all out of this void, but if we can’t all get out then it has to be you, Gumball. Then Elmore won’t be doomed anymore and you would actually have time to go get help for the rest of us.” Anais told him. 

“But what if the void works it’s weird magic on me and I forget about you? I can’t lose you guys!” Gumball said, close to tears. 

“You won’t” Anais reassured him. “You managed to remember about the show for a good three weeks! You managed to think your way into remembering Molly! If anyone can do it, it’s you.” 

“Our friendship was strong enough to get me to remember.” Darwin pointed out. “I’m sure it’ll be the same for you.” 

“They’re right.” Rob said, reluctantly. Gumball looked at him, surprised. He wasn’t expecting that from him. “If only one person can get out it has to be you. It’s no big deal if i’m stuck here, i’ve been here before and it didn’t effect anything. But you? Elmore needs you, you’re the only one who can save it. You can’t have “The Amazing World of Gumball” without Gumball.” It was hard for him to admit this, it wasn’t to long ago that he hated Gumball for doing that exact thing, but he had to face the facts, in the TV show of their lives, Gumball was more important than him. He didn’t want all of Elmore to perish just because of his stupid pride. Gumball raised an eyebrow after hearing the show’s title, was that really what it was called? He started thinking over what everyone said and nodded solemnly, he didn’t want this, he didn’t want to be the solitary hero, it was terrifying. Whenever he went on a crazy adventure he usually had at least Darwin by his side. Even during this whole memory loss ordeal he thought he was going to be alone but Anais and Rob quickly got roped in. But he didn’t really have a choice. Only he could save Elmore. Yet another burden of being the main character. 

“Ok, but right now we need a plan or none of us are getting out of here.” 

“I think I might have an idea.” Darwin said. Everyone turned to look at him. 

“Really? What is it?” Gumball asked. 

“Well, if we can’t open a hole from out there in Elmore, maybe we can open one in here.” 

“That’s not a bad idea, but how will we do that? There’s no photographic backgrounds to open in here.” 

“Well, what I was thinking, is that maybe we could create an explosion. An explosion so big that it would open a hole between the two dimensions.” 

“That’s your plan? Just blow it up? Seriously?” Anais asked, dumbfounded. 

“Actually, I think that might work!” Rob said. “There are a lot of explosive things in here. You would be surprised by how many of the world’s mistakes involve explosions.” The others nodded, that made sense. “But we’ll need a way to set them all off at the same time.” Gumball and Darwin looked at each other with silent understanding and gave each other a little nod. “Leave that to us.” Gumball said. 

A little while later Rob and Anais had gathered up everything explosive that was in the void while Gumball and Darwin had build an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine in order to set them all off at the same time. Even Anais had to admit it was impressive. Needlessly complicated, but impressive. “Ok, so this spring here releases the bowling ball which knocks over this little domino thing of disco cds, which will make the hot wheels recycling truck run down this ramp which will trip the wire that connects to the explosives.” Gumball finished explaining. “According to Rob there are some things in here that just automatically go off every ten minutes or so, like the whole exploding blimp thing, so we have to time it just right. We only get one chance at this, so let’s make it count.” The others nodded, they were all well aware of that. “Alright, let’s go.” Gumball said as they all got into position. 

“Ok, just a few more seconds. 3..2...1...and go!” Gumball shouted as he released the first component of his machine. For once, everything went off without a hitch. Everything was going according to plan. “Look! It’s working!” Anais said as she pointed to a hole opening up in the void. The others cheered as they started rushing towards it. Unfortunately it was a small hole, and it was closing up fast. “Gumball! You have to go now!” Anais shouted. “Remember what we talked about? You have to be the one to get out of here for now! Go!” Gumball hesitated, he knew he agreed to go alone if he had to, but he suddenly found himself unable to. He couldn’t bring himself to leave any of them. Anais, his super smart little sister who he often went to when he needed advice. Darwin, his brother and best friend, the person who was always by his side no matter what. And Rob, the guy who he had just promised he wouldn’t do this to again, they all meant to much to him to leave them behind. “I can’t.” Gumball said.

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t! I can’t leave you guys!” Gumball shouted. He rushed toward the hole, determined. He was going to find a way to get them all out of here, no matter what. He jumped on to the hole and forcibly held it open. “Go! Get out of here! I can’t hold this thing forever!”

“Gumball! What are you doing?” Darwin asked.

“Just go!” He shouted. Darwin decided to take his advice and jumped out of the hole, the others followed suit. Despite Gumball’s interference, the hole was still trying to close. Gumball pushed against it as hard as he could. Not wanting everyone to get away, the void shocked him. It was like the sensation when your foot falls asleep, but all over your body. This caused Gumball to lose his grip and the hole closed even more, almost trapping him inside. Gumball dug deep inside himself for all of the strength he had and pushed as hard as he could. He forcibly ripped the hole open and the reaction began to spread around the void. Gumball watched in shock as the entire place started crumbling apart. “Did I do that?” Gumball wondered. “I guess I take after my mother more than I thought.” He started to climb out when an ill timed explosion propelled him outside of the void. He fell from a great height and his head hit the sidewalks of Elmore. 


	11. Null and Void

“Gumball! Gumball! Wake up! Gumball, please!” Darwin shouted as he tried to shake his best friend awake. All three of them were crying, wondering if he was going to make it.   
“Darwin, I think maybe he’s……” Anais started. But before she could finish her sentence Gumball started making groaning noises. He wasn’t dead, he just passed out. They all broke out in gigantic smiles, relieved that he was ok. Until something happened that none of them saw coming. Gumball began to glitch. Everyone gave a big gasp. Darwin and Anais started panicking, they had no idea what just happened to him. Rob had figured it out pretty much immediately.   
“What’s going on? What just happened to him?” Anais shouted in a panic.   
“Ok, don’t panic, but I think the same thing that happened to me my first time escaping the void happened to him.”   
“What happened to you?” Anais repeated. “You mean you weren’t born this way? The void disfigured you?” Anais felt kind of stupid, like she should have figured that out for herself. After all, the static on his skin looked exactly like the static in the void, she just didn’t make the connection.   
“Yeah.” Rob told them. “Luckily it doesn’t hurt, it just feels weird and unsettling. He should be ok, it doesn’t look like he took as much damage as I did, he still mostly looks like himself.” Suddenly Gumball started to wake up, the others backed away, trying to give him some air.   
“Hey Gumball, you ok buddy?” Darwin asked him.   
“I remember.” Gumball said in shock.  
“Gumball, what are you talking about?” Darwin said, concerned.   
“I remember! I remember our first trip here! Molly was missing, so we figured out the clues and went to go get her. Why do I remember that?”   
“I don't know.” Darwin said, he tried to think of an explanation, but he couldn’t come up with one.   
“And you!” Gumball said, talking to Rob. “I remember you too, from before. Darwin pushed you down a manhole!”   
“That was you?!” Darwin said, shocked. “What the heck did that void do to you? You look so different now!”  
“Yeah, I know I do, getting physically ripped between dimensions can be pretty taxing on your body.” Rob explained.  
“Wait, I think I remember you too!” Anais said. “Did you used to be blue? Have brown hair and a pink iris?”   
“Yeah, I did! How come you know that? How come you remember me?”  
“I don’t know.” Anais said. Suddenly Gumball glitched out again. Gumball gasped and started patting down his body in a panic. “Guys, what just happened to me?!” Gumball shouted.   
“Well, you know what happened to me when I first escaped the void? I think it just happened to you.” Rob explained.   
“What! Really?” Gumball said, panicking even more. “But, then why is it only affecting me? You were all in there too!”   
“Yeah, but you took most of the void’s abuse by tearing that hole in the universe to try and get us all out. I think that may have something to do with it.”  
“You’re right!” Gumball admitted. “It was the shock! That’s what did it!”  
“What do you mean?”  
“The void! It shocked me! It was trying to stop me from opening the hole! It’s like it has a will of it’s own or something.” Gumball explained. “Oh god, what did I just do? What have I done to myself?!” Yes, he’d done a lot of crazy and risky stuff in the past but he’d never given himself any lasting damage like this before. Whenever he got hurt in the past it would usually heal itself a few minutes later, even really bad injuries like broken bones never took any more than a few days to heal, probably a little perk from living in TV land. But this was something he could tell wasn’t going to wear off. It’s been months and it hadn’t worn off for Rob, so why would it for him? Gumball was nervously pacing back and forth until Darwin grabbed his arm to get him to stop.   
“Hey, I’ll tell you what you just did. You saved us. You were so focused on getting us all out, I’ve never seen you like that before. You’re our hero Gumball.”   
“I’m no hero.” Gumball protested.   
“You are, you even have the battle scars to prove it.” That got Gumball to giggle a bit.   
“I mean, it’s not that bad. It doesn’t hurt or anything, it just feels weird.” Rob told him. “You get used to it after a while.” Gumball then reached out and gave Rob a hug. Rob was surprised, he wasn’t expecting it, and he hadn't had one in a while. “Thanks dude.” Gumball told him. He couldn’t imagine ever getting used to this, but Rob had, and he would know, wouldn’t he? Suddenly he was hit on the back of the head by something heavy. “Ow! What was that?” Gumball asked, turning around and picking up the object that had hit him. “What the what? Hairspray? What’s that doing here?”   
“Um guys, you might want to take a look at this.” Darwin said. Everyone turned to look at what he was staring at and their jaws dropped simultaneously. The hole to the void was still open, and random stuff had started spewing out of it. “Watch out!” Darwin shouted right before Gumball was hit with another piece of flying debris.  
“Ok what is going on!” Gumball shouted. “Between this, my new glitchy state, and getting my memories back, I’m starting to really freak out.”   
“You’re not the only one.” Darwin pointed out. Gumball turned and saw that the whole town had all gathered around the hole to see what was going on. Whatever it was it was no surprise to them that Gumball and his siblings were at the center of it all. They always seemed to be whenever something strange happened in this town.   
“I think we may have done more damage to the void then we thought.” Anais mused “That hole between the two dimensions looks like it might be permanent.”  
“That would explain the flying debris, and everyone getting their memory back.” Gumball noted. “So does that mean everything that was in the void is coming back to Elmore?”  
“I guess so.” Anais replied.  
“Well, it looks like we have a lot of explaining to do.” Gumball said, gesturing to all the townspeople. They were all freaking out even more as their missing memories started returning to them. Darwin, Anais, and Rob nodded in agreement. Suddenly people started coming out of the void as well as things. Gumball and Darwin recognized some of them, like Tobias’ older sister, Rachel. She ran over to her family with tears in her eyes and they all gave her a big hug. Gumball, Darwin and Anais got a little teary eyed watching the scene, until they noticed that Rob wasn’t watching it with them. He was staring at a cyclops couple with a shocked expression, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. They were both male, one tall, one short. The tall one was wearing a bowtie and the short one was wearing a matching sweater. “Dad? Papa?” Rob said with tears in his eyes. He couldn’t believe it, he was afraid he would never see them again.   
“Rob? Is that you son?” The tall one asked. “What happened to you? Are you ok? When we couldn’t find you in the void we got so worried!” Rob got overwhelmed and started sobbing, much to the concern of his parents.   
“Yeah, I….uh...I managed to escape.” He stammered. “That’s….that’s why I look like this. I hope you’re ok with it. I never wanted to look this way, it just kinda happened.” He figured he would tell his parents about what happened in more detail later. They didn’t need to know everything right away. The tall one started crying. He couldn’t believe this had happened to his son. He felt like he should’ve stopped it somehow, that’s what a parent’s supposed to do, right? Protect their kids? The short one went over and tried to comfort Rob.   
“Oh, Rob, son, of course we’re ok with it. It doesn’t matter what you look like, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, and I know you’re still our great kid on the inside. We’re just glad to see you again.” Rob smiled through his tears and gave his short father a hug, with the tall one quickly joining in. Rob hugged them as tight as he could, he was so afraid that he would never be able to do this again. His parents did too, they were so glad that he was here and he was safe, despite his new appearance. “I missed you guys so much.” Rob told them.   
“We missed you too son.” The Watterson kids were watching the whole thing with tears in their eyes. “That’s so sweet.” Darwin said. Suddenly they heard their own parents shouting their names. “Kids? Kids, where are you?” Nicole shouted.   
“Mom! Dad!” The three kids shouted as they ran into their parents embrace. “I’m so glad you’re safe.” Nicole told them. “I can’t believe we actually forgot about you. What kind of parents are we?”   
“It’s not your fault! That’s just what happens when you go into the void! You couldn’t help it.” Anais told them.   
“So Darwin was telling the truth? You really were trapped in a dimension of the world’s mistakes?” Nicole asked.  
“Yeah, I was.” Darwin said while the others nodded to confirm. “But luckily Gumball here managed to get us all out.”   
“It wasn’t all me.” Gumball protested.   
“It was mostly you. We wouldn’t have been able to get out without your little sacrifice back there.”   
“Well….that’s true.” Gumball said, relishing the praise. He then glitched out again in front of his parents, who were understandably alarmed. “What was that? What did you just do?” They asked him.   
“Oh, that” Gumball said. In all the commotion he had actually managed to forget all about it. “Just a little side effect from the void. I guess that’s just something I’m going to have to live with now. That’s not going to be a problem, is it?”   
“Of course not.” Nicole said. “Does that hurt you?”   
“No, it doesn’t. It actually feels kind of numb, you know that feeling you get when your foot falls asleep? It’s like that.”   
“Hey guys?” Rob interrupted. “I think we’re going to take off. We’ve got quite a bit of catching up to do.” He said, gesturing to his parents.   
“Of course. I think there are a few thing we need to fill our parents in on too.” Gumball told him. “I’m glad you managed to find your family again.”   
“Thanks to you.” Rob admitted. “Thanks for saving me back there, by the way, you didn’t have to do that.”  
“Yeah I did, I couldn’t just leave you guys in there. I’m just sorry I didn’t save you the first time.”   
“That’s water under the bridge.” Rob told him. “I’ll see you guys later though. We should probably talk about what we’re going to do now that there's no void.”  
“Yeah, I’m guessing a lot of things are going to change.” Gumball mused. The two said their goodbyes and Rob rejoined his parents.   
“Who was that?” Nicole asked him. Gumball puzzled about what to say. His former nemesis? A guy who got trapped in the void? “A friend.” He said simply. That seemed like the truest answer. “How about we all go home and we’ll explain everything.” The parents agreed and they all walked away from the gaping hole that was once the void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, the adventure may be over, but I'm not done yet! Stay tuned for an epilogue giving you a little taste of what Elmore is like without the void. Rob's parent's, named Gerald and Marley are OC's created by the amazing Jess-Wreckage-Sucks on tumblr.com. Check them out!


	12. Epiloge

Gumball woke up from the beeping of his alarm clock and groaned. It was the first day back at school after the whole void incident and he was already missing the break. Not that it was much of a break. As Gumball predicted, the gang had a lot of explaining to do about the void. First they had to tell their parents about everything that happened. Well, almost everything, They decided to omit the part about Rob pushing them into the void, instead opting to say that they fell in. They knew how intense Nicole got when it came to protecting her kids and they wanted to spare him her wrath. They decided not to mention a lot of things about Rob actually, only telling them the bare bones essentials, that he was a guy who was trapped in the void and managed to get out, and that he was the one who told them about it and showed them where it was. They figured that they should let Rob decide how much of his backstory that he wanted to tell. They also didn't mention anything about the TV show. They talked it over and they didn't think anyone else should know, at least not right away. They already exposed one life-changing secret to the masses, they figured they should wait a while before exposing another one. As it was their phone had been ringing off the hook. A ton of people wanted to know what the Wattersons have gotten themselves into now, and why they could suddenly remember things that they couldn’t before. Usually the phone got passed to Gumball, who was the one who was there for the majority of the story, or to Anais, who was the best at explaining things. On about the hundredth ring Gumball picked up the phone in annoyance. It was getting pretty tedious having to explain himself over and over again. 

“Hello?” He answered in a bored tone. 

“Gumball? Is that you?” 

“Penny?” Gumball asked. She was one of the few people who he actually wanted to talk to. “Yeah, it’s me.” 

“Oh thank goodness! I heard about what happened. I just wanted to make sure that you were ok.” Gumball smiled, it was just like Penny to worry about whether or not he was ok instead of what he had managed to get himself into. It was one of the reasons he liked her. 

“Yeah, I’m ok.” Gumball told her. He then glitched out again. Oh yeah, he should probably mention that. “Listen, I’m ok, but I’m a bit…..different from the last time you saw me.” 

“Different? Different how?” 

“It’s hard to explain, It turns out that you don’t escape from the void without a few side effects.”

“Side effects? Are you sure you’re ok?” Penny said, getting a little worried. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s not like it hurts or anything.” 

“Well good. I was so worried about you! It was so brave of you to break open the void like that and save everyone.” Gumball basked in Penny’s adoration. She hadn’t praised him like this since the day he helped her break out of her shell. “This actually explains so much, like why you’ve been acting so depressed these last few weeks. You knew about the void back then, didn’t you? But you didn’t think you could do anything about it. You thought you just had to live with it, right?” 

“Uh, yeah! Yeah, that was it.” Gumball said nervously. He didn’t want to tell her about the TV show. At least, not yet. Maybe someday. But for now, he actually felt ok about that. Now he had plenty of other people to talk to about it. He didn’t feel so alone anymore. 

Gumball took another cursory glance at his alarm clock and realized that he spent so much time reminiscing that he was going to be late for school. Despite his earlier groaning and wishing that he got to sleep in more he was curious as to how things would change now that the void was destroyed. At the very least there would be some more students now.  Gumball reluctantly got up, changed into his clothes and went to eat breakfast. “Good morning Gumball.” Darwin and Anais said. 

“Morning guys.” Gumball replied. They all looked at each other for a bit and all started laughing, they just couldn’t believe that they were doing something so mundane as eating cereal after all the chaos they just endured. It was nice to laugh again, Gumball noticed, he hadn’t done it in a while. When the kids arrived at school everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at them. “You think they know it was us?” Darwin asked. 

“Yeah dude, I think they do.” Gumball replied. The others kept staring for a while until suddenly someone started clapping. The clapping grew until pretty soon people were full-on applauding for them. Gumball gave a big smile and soaked up the praise while also getting a little teary-eyed, Darwin blushed shyly but was also smiling despite this, and Anais was shocked for a minute before breaking out a smile of her own.

“Is this what it’s like to be a movie star?” Darwin asked.

“Dude, forget movie star, it’s like we’re freaking superheros!” Gumball said. 

“Well, you did save the world.” Darwin pointed out. 

“I saved  _ our  _ world. Which was stupid enough to design itself around me in the first place. I can’t handle that kind of responsibility.” Suddenly their conversation was interrupted by a breathy voice. “Um, Gumball, Darwin?” They turned and came face to face with Mr. Small. (or well, face to hip. There was quite a big height difference.) “I don’t really know how to ask this, but did we really……?” Gumball and Darwin both nodded. They knew what he was going to say next. 

“You mean, did we really go inside the void, rescue Molly and Janice, get out in the nick of time only to lose our memories of the event later? Yes, we did. We remember it too.” 

“And that’s why you went to my office to ask me if I remembered it.” Mr. Small confirmed, Gumball nodded again. 

“Well, I don’t know what to say. Thanks for helping me get Janice back, and for getting my memories back and destroying that void. It really is incredible what you guys have done, you exposed one of the biggest conspiracies in this town. I kinda thought that it would be me who would do that.” Gumball and Darwin shared a look, of course, he didn’t know the real big conspiracy about this town. 

“Well, I’m sure it’s not the only conspiracy theory in town. Maybe there’s even one that’s bigger, just keep looking.” Gumball said, throwing him a bit of a bone. Who knows, he was right about the void, maybe he could figure out the real secret. After that the floodgates had opened and everyone went up to go talk to them, including Molly, thanking them for going in the void to save her, and even Tobias said a kind word to them for rescuing his sister. Gumball was loving the attention but unfortunately there was only a few minutes before class started and everyone had to disperse. That didn’t stop them from whispering and passing notes to the trio every chance they had. The only teacher to call them out on this was Ms. Simian. It seemed she wouldn’t let up on Gumball and Darwin even after they’d helped save the world. And of course, whenever they went out in the halls they got mobbed by people wanting to talk to them.  One passing period they saw another mob around someone else. Gumball and Darwin went to go see what they were looking at. Only to see who they were crowded around.

“Rob! Hey! What are you doing here? I thought you didn’t attend school anymore.” Gumball said with a smile. They had just seen each other pretty recently, they had done what Rob had suggested and went out to talk about what they were going to do now that the void was destroyed. They also had to fill Darwin in on everything that had happened, including telling him about Rob’s backstory. When the story was done he got up and gave Rob a hug, much to his surprise, and kept telling him over and over again how sorry he was. But he couldn’t recall him telling them that he was going back to school. 

“Well, I didn’t, but my dads insisted I enroll in school again. They said something about how it was important that I get an education.” He pretended to sound annoyed about it but you could tell that he was happy to have his dads back and looking out for him again. His parents had been spoiling him ever since they found out that he had been basically homeless for a while after escaping the void. They felt really bad that they weren’t there to help him, even though Rob kept reassuring them that it wasn’t really their fault. Gumball gave him a sly smile as he saw right through it. “Well, it’ll be good to have you back.” Rob smiled, he was feeling a lot better lately. He had his house and family back, and a lot of people came up to him to apologize for forgetting about him, so he had all of his friends back as well, in fact, he even had more friends now than he did before. He and a bunch of other people who were trapped in the void were thinking of starting a support group for people who the world considered mistakes. “Well, now that you’re back in school, you want to have lunch with us?” Rob eagerly nodded yes, happy that they still wanted to hang out with him even after they succeeded in their goal of getting Darwin’s memories back. It seems being trapped in the void has a way of bringing people together. He had gotten what he wanted, he truly was part of the gang. 

Meanwhile Anais was heading to her brother’s table for lunch when she heard a group of eighth graders call out to her. “Hey! Anais, was it?” They asked her. 

“Yeah” She said a little hesitantly. These guys had never wanted to talk to her before. 

“Were you really in that big creepy static place?” One of them asked her. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I was.” 

“That’s so cool!” They said. “You want to come sit with us and tell us about it?” 

“Really? Yeah! That sounds great!” Anais said enthusiastically. She then saw that her brothers had been watching the whole thing. She turned towards them and gave a not very discreet thumbs up. Gumball and Darwin smiled and shook their heads. It seemed she still had to work on this whole “friend” thing. But at least she now had a chance to do so. 

Days passed, all very much like the first, until eventually interest in their story started to die down until eventually it disappeared altogether. Gumball and Darwin got involved in other adventures. Still, things had changed. Even after losing their fascination with it, their classmates never forgot what happened and what they did, so they treated them with a little more respect than they had before. People no longer lost their memories, so a few more people had figured out about the existence of the TV show, usually Gumball and Darwin had figured out that they knew and tried to help them through it, They had gained a friend in Rob, he even came along on their adventures sometimes, and Gumball, Darwin, and Anais all knew the truth about their world, and that wasn’t something they could just shake off. It had changed them, for better or for worse. 


End file.
